


View From a Broken Mirror

by aintweproudriff



Series: Royalty/Magic AU [4]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Albert as a little kid youre welcome for that image, Boys In Love, Lily is so sweet, M/M, Multi, Queen Summer is the best, Worldbuilding, angus tries he really does, being royalty is hard but i wouldnt mind trying it, edward is a GOOD DUDE, good parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-03-31 23:31:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13985631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: King Edward remembered what it was like to be Prince Elmer's age, and to need to find something more. Elmer had found it, and who was he to take it away?Queen Lily isn't impressed by the big royal parties. She much prefers the little moments, in which love can grow.Queen Summer knows her son well enough to know when something is wrong. She also knows just what to say.King Angus doesn’t cry. Often, at least.Title inspired by "Cecilia and the Satellite" by Andrew McMahon and the Wilderness





	1. King Edward

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't exactly what the prompt wanted but it was a super fun worldbuilding experiment  
> maybe ill do a part 2

King Edward pushed his son out of the room, stealing a quick glance backwards at the shocked rulers, and then turned to face Prince Elmer, who was now cowering.

“Explain.” King Edward stared down at Prince Elmer.

“So I, I would leave the castle sometimes.” 

Edward pressed his lips together. Elmer had been sneaking out? How had he not known about this? How could his son be so blatantly disrespectful?

“And I would, uh, explore the kingdom. The first time I went out, I actually went all the way to the place where all four kingdoms meet. Just as I was thinking about how interesting it all was, I met this boy. He, uh, called himself Race.”

Edward stayed silent to let Elmer continue. 

“Yeah, he was from the air kingdom, and really nice. And he had these friends, Spot and Albert. Well, we started being friends too, and we would meet up every other night to talk and to, well,” he chuckled awkwardly. That made Edward nervous. “We would practice magic. Magic from each of the four kingdoms. Actually, we only got through two. But we wanted to leran all of them.”

“And you love these boys?” he asked, sighing. He couldn’t believe he was asking this question to his son, and especially not under these circumstances. 

“Yes,” Elmer said, without hesitation. “I mean,” he stopped himself before he spoke too fast, but the deed was done. “I think I do. I only realized it today, when I saw them. I did not know they were princes until today, and they did not know that I was a prince until today. But um,” he blushed, “yeah. Yeah, I think I do love them. I am happy when I am with them.”

If that was all that Elmer thought love was, then there was a lot he had to learn. Still, who was King Edward to interfere in the life of his son? Even royalty had limits. 

“I would like to speak with the other rulers,” the King said. “Only the kings and queens, not the princes. Stay here,” he instructed, and Elmer nodded.

He saw Prince Sean, Prince Anthony, and Prince Albert walk out of the room, and he did his best to smile at them as he walked past them in the opposite direction. Best to be nice to the boys; he was either about to become the father of their significant other or break their hearts. 

He stepped into the great hall again, greeted by stoic faces. They were always stoic, the kings and queens. Every ruler he’d ever known had been definitively unfeeling in everything that he, she, or they did. Including his own father. There were times that he felt he had done the same thing to his son; acting as though the only way to be professional was to feel nothing. If there was one thing he regretted, maybe it was that. The idea that maybe he had caused his son to sneak out crossed his mind, but he shoved it away. This was not the time.

“That certainly was unexpected,” he told them, sitting down in his chair.

“What happened?” Queen Summer asked, her normally airy and relaxed voice heavy with concern. “What did he say?”

“Our boys have apparently been leaving their own kingdoms at night,” King Edward leaned forward and put his arms on the table. “They each did it, I assume, for their own reasons. But if I had to guess at a common motive, it would be that the stress of being royalty was affecting them and they needed to feel like they were not princes. They met each other, by some twist of fate, and became friends. More than friends, from what I can tell.”

“Really?” Queen Summer gaped. “All four of them?”

“It is not as though something similar has never been done before,” Queen Laurel shrugged, as if she didn’t care, but her face was dark. “You have all heard the stories and rumors of what may have happened between the four original rulers.”

“You cannot seriously believe those!” King Angus laughed at her. “They are only tales, stories, by people who dream.”

“Angus, you must have read the diaries of the rulers. Surely Queen Bramber wrote some and left them behind,” Edward reasoned. 

Angus turned to face Edward. “I have read them, and so has every historian in our kingdom. They have all answered me that the four of them were friends, no more. So your argument that the four of them were romantically involved makes no sense.”

“That may be correct,” Queen Laurel argued. “They certainly loved each other, but I would be just as quick to believe that they loved each other as friends. Either way, it does not matter, for I believe that if our boys really love each other, we shouldn’t keep them back from it.”

“I agree. And, as far as I can tell, they really do love each other. At the very least, I am convinced that Prince Elmer loves the other princes. His face lit up when I mentioned their names, and then again when he saw their faces,” King Edward explained, ignoring the dubious face that King Angus was making. “He loves them, at least in a friend way.”

“You do not think he is too young to know about love?” Queen Summer asked.

“My boy is only seventeen,” King Angus supplemented. 

“Angus,” Edward sighed, trying not to get frustrated. “You and your wife were eighteen when you got married. I know that to be a fact. Even if they are too young, however, I still do not understand why we would stand in their way. We have always had people do that same thing to us.”

“How do you mean?” Summer leaned forward, her yellow hair falling in her face. 

“Our boys felt so pressured by being royal that they went behind our backs at night to leave, and just be normal. Have you never wanted that? Some kind of normal life, like you see in your kingdom?”

A tiny nod went around the table. 

“We are not given the same privileges that our villagers receive, however,” King Angus argued. 

“And who told you that, your majesty?” Edward said, bitingly polite. 

“My mother, of course.”

“And I can only assume that her parents told her that, and their parents told them that, and their parents before them. King Angus, the royal families have always been held to a high standard, one that leaves us no room for growth or excitement in our lives. When I was young, and possibly when you were young, there was a need in me for something more than what I was doing,” King Edward remembered what it was like to be a teenager, so desperate for some kind of meaning. “Our princes have done what I never was brave enough to do. They went and found that something more. Already, they are better than I, and for that I believe that we should trust them and allow them to do as they see fit here.”

A pause lingered in the air. King Angus nodded. So did Queen Laurel, and then Queen Summer. 

“If this story that Prince Elmer told is true, that he loves my son and your sons,” King Angus said into the silence, “then I agree with you, King Edward. They may be capable of knowing what needs to be done.”

“Shall we ask them if it was true?” Queen Summer asked, and held out her hand. An aide rushed to her side. “Would you go fetch the princes, please?” she asked him. He nodded and promptly left.

King Edward took a breath. It would be up to Elmer to live up to the way he had been built up. He could do it.


	2. Queen Lily

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is super short aaaa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise, bich. Thought youd seen the last of me. (You didn't, you knew better)  
> But I bet you thought this fic was going to be one or maaaaybe two chapters! Nope!

Simple moments, like this, pleased Queen Lily more than she liked to let on. When she had been dating Laurel, who was a princess at the time, she tried to pretend like she loved the royal balls and parties and big events. And of course, they were fun. She enjoyed them well enough; she especially liked dressing up like she was royalty, putting on a gown and a crown and parading around. The balls and dances reminded her of the day that Laurel had proposed, when she pulled Lily up to the front of the hall and gave a big speech about how lucky she was to be not only the heir to the throne of the Earth Kingdom, but also the one who got to be with Lily. Then she tripped over her long skirt as she got down on one knee, and Lily started crying, along with the King, Queen, and most attendees of the party, both male and female. The castle, and Lily’s house in the village, had been swarmed with media for weeks after the engagement. 

And then the balls when Albert was a little boy had always been so fun. He would run up to her when she was sitting at the table and tug on her skirt until she stood up, took his hand, and walked with him to the dance floor. He loved when she picked him up and threw him in the air, making his bright red hair fly up in all directions in time with the music. As he got older and became too heavy to pick up, he would take both of her hands and they would dance together, stepping to the beat. He didn’t do it much after he turned eleven; he preferred to try and look older than he was by sitting next to Queen Laurel and greeting visitors to the kingdom. He looked so handsome in his suits and an all-natural crown on his head. He was still her little boy, though, even when he thought he was too good for her.   
All in all, she didn’t love the royal balls. Lily much preferred the small moments of the big parties. Like the way Albert would dance. Like the proposal, which had been a big moment, but felt small because of the way that Laurel’s hair had fallen over her shoulders and the way Lily’s tears ran down her face. 

So no, she hadn’t much cared when Albert had come home and held a party to announce to the media of the kingdom that the story was true: he was in love with the three princes of the other kingdoms. She had been proud of the way he stood tall and patiently answered every question that the reporters for every village newspaper asked him. She had cried a little bit when he mentioned that he felt that his responsibilities were too much, and he felt as though he had to get away. But overall, it wasn’t any big deal. Just another day dealing with the politics of being royalty.   
Even when Albert announced that he was hosting a party in honor of his boyfriends’ first official, recognized visit to the kingdom, she hadn’t been bothered. Excited to meet these boys who had made her son so happy, sure. But even putting on the dress and the crown seemed boring at this point, after so many years of being a queen. Laurel never seemed to get sick of it, and Lily never tired of seeing Laurel look so beautiful. But life in the village had been more simple. 

On the day that the boys were to arrive, Albert was so excited. For hours he had rushed around the castle, trying to make sure that everything was in order. She was sure that every maid in the castle had shooed him off because of his micro-managing their every scrub. It was adorable, honestly. She had done the same thing the first time that Laurel had run away from the castle for a night to spend it with Lily at her house, only it had been her scrubbing and cleaning and not an army of paid help. Yes, Laurel and Lily had fun as teenagers. Albert was not as original as he believed himself to be. 

When they showed up, every ounce of anxiety that Laurel had seen in her son seemed to disappear. First the one from the water kingdom, then from the fire kingdom, then the air kingdom. With each one who arrived, his smile got wider and wider. 

At the party that night, he danced more than she had seen him do in years, since he had taken her hand and led her to the expanse of floor. And with dance partners who knew what they were doing, who had likely taken as many dance lessons as Albert had, it was a sight to see.

But it was after the party when Lily’s night went from good enough to just about perfect. It was nearing two o’clock in the morning, and the guests had finally faded out of the castle’s ballroom and gone home. Lily had taken her crown and shoes off; the former she held in her right hand, the latter in the left. She was on her way to the bedroom, where she knew she would collapse on her bed without taking her dress off and let the rush of the night pass over her, leaving her giggling and giddy. It was a feeling she savored, the tired glee of remembering she was royalty. 

Before she could head up the steps, however, she heard giggling that stopped her in her tracks. She took a step backwards, then peered around the corner to see the source of the noise. Albert’s voice was what she heard next, shushing the three boys at his side. The four of them sat on the floor, huddled in a corner for the sole purpose of being close to one another. Lily smiled and, against her better judgement, let herself linger. 

Albert leaned his head on the fire boy’s - Sean’s - shoulder and smiled, whispering something under his breath. Prince Elmer took Albert’s hand and put his other arm around Prince Anthony. Sean laughed again, which made Anthony laugh, and Elmer, and Albert too. She thought for a moment that Elmer may have seen her, but if he did then he brought no attention to it. 

The four of them looked so relaxed, so at peace, so happy against the cool wall on the hot night. Queen Lily grinned and pulled herself away from the happy, simple scene. The big parties were great, but it was the little moments that made being royal worthwhile. And in that kind of little moment, where Albert could just be a boy in love, where he didn’t have to be royal, was so much better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> awwww
> 
> For those of you that want to know, I'm writing a novel and it's going well! That means I'll still be kinda absent from fic writing, but you can expect little updates here and there.


	3. Queen Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is really cheesy. What's new?

Queen Summer loved her son, she really did. The two of them didn’t always see eye to eye on how Anthony should act, but she loved him nonetheless. Even if he really should have been more princely and worked harder on preparing to run the kingdom, she was proud that he spoke his mind and didn’t waver in front of anything. He got that from his father, who she had to be grateful was not the actual ruler of the kingdom, since the King had not been born into royalty, but had married her. He was never very good at being responsible either, but he was certainly a welcome break from the pressures of ruling. 

She used to worry about her husband, Neil, because he was irresponsible. Now she worried about Anthony, who even as a baby had been a kind of firecracker. He never could sit still, never was content to be in just one place. It used to be an issue because he was incapable of sitting through events where he had to speak to groups of people or listen to his mother and father speak to the kingdom or pay attention to his lessons. Then it was a problem when he had run away from home the first time. Then the second time. It had taken four times for him to stop trying to run away from home, or so she had thought. Apparently, he just learned how to get better at it so that nobody found out where he had gone, or even noticed he had left, because she would come to find out that he had been running away in the middle of the night for months. Not only that, but he had found friends, fallen in love, and learned other magics. She never would have guessed it, but she couldn’t say she was surprised. 

Now, however, with him about to be crowned king and his boyfriends to be crowned soon afterwards, she worried for other reasons. Yes, he was unpredictable and sometimes immature, but there had been other rulers like him before and there would be other rulers like him later. Or perhaps there wouldn’t be, if he and his boyfriends succeeded in their plan to eliminate the monarchy. Besides, even if he was reckless sometimes, he would have three other kings to balance out his impulses. She trusted them a little bit more. Well, the fire boy had a temper. But the boys from water and earth magic seemed calm enough to balance the two of them out. If she and Neil had been able to do it, there was hope for the four of them. 

And yet. There would always be mornings like this, when Anthony woke up and walked down the stairs in a huff. His hair disheveled, his face looking like he smelled something rotten, he would take his place at the morning table without saying a word. He shoved his face full of food, and left as fast as possible.   
She knew which nights he went out, and she knew that he always was a little extra tired after them. But this was more than being sleep-deprived, although she wouldn’t have been surprised if that was a part of it. She let him go, but made sure to keep tabs on him the rest of the day. Queen Summer passed the door to his room almost twenty times before lunch alone, attempting to inconspicuously listen for any sign that he was still in there and doing okay. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted, but she hadn’t expected that she would walk by for the seventeenth time only to have the door open in her face. 

“Oh, Anthony,” she said, her voice breathless. 

“Hello, mother. I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten tired of walking by my room.”

“You knew?” she tilted her head to the side, smiling and feeling red in her face. 

“You’re wearing shoes that click.”

“Right,” she nodded. “Should we go get some food or something?”

“That’s where I was headed, yeah,” he said, his voice hoarse. He looked up at her and his eyes were pink.

“Okay, let’s go do that then.”

The two of them walked down to the kitchen, making no sound but for the way Queen Summer’s shoes clicked. She really should have noticed that earlier.   
Race had calmed down a little bit since that morning, but he hiccuped as he pulled food down from the cabinet and she sighed. She took a sip of water and sat down, not bothering to actually get any food. 

“What is going on with you today, Anthony?” she asked, and he looked over his shoulder before hunching over and putting the bread on top of the sandwich. 

“Nothing,” he bluffed, sitting down across from her.

She looked up. “I know you better than that. I know better than that in general. I am not stupid, you know.”

He smiled, probably remembering every time she had told him something similar when he tried to lie to her. “I know.”

“So what is the issue you are having, exactly?”

“It is not that big of a deal,” Anthony sighed. “It’s stupid.”

“But it upset you,” she pointed out. “So I care.”

“Thanks, mom,” he took a bite. “It’s Spot and Elmer and Albert. We were out last night, which I’m sorry for, I know you don’t want me out at night anymore, but we love doing it and it’s so much fun and it’s a good way to relax and-”

“I understand. You are not going to stop no matter how much I tell you to, so I’ll give it a rest. It is alright that you keep going out.”

“Thanks,” he laughed. “Anyway, we were out and I said something really stupid and they got mad at me for saying it and then I tried to defend myself and they got even madder.”

“What could you have said to set them off like that?”

Anthony sighed heavily, and she braced herself for what was coming. 

“I was just trying to say that they should know what I’m like before they commit to me, like really commit. I wanted to be honest with them,” he breathed, putting his elbows on the table and leaning his head in his hands, “like you and dad are. But they just kind of got angry, and I did not really understand why until I sat and thought about it. They were angry that I told them that I thought it wasn’t going to work out.”

“What exactly did you tell them?” she asked, fighting the proud smile. He was capable of thinking things through, apparently. She’d never seen him really do that before. 

“That I’m flighty and tend to run away from relationships so they shouldn’t be surprised if I disappear,” he muttered. 

“Oh.”

“That’s not all,” he shook his head. "Spot, uh, Sean-”

“I know who Spot is, Anthony,” she smiled.

“Sean asked me if I was planning on running away from them,” he said, not returning the smile. “And I said, ‘well, not right now at least, but I probably will’.”

She frowned. “That would be enough to make someone angry. I know it made me angry when your father said it a few years ago.”

He looked up. “What?”

“We had a conversation, before we were married. He said exactly what you just said, and I yelled at him because I was angry that he had so little faith in me and our relationship. Sound similar?”

Anthony nodded. “You sound like Albert.”

“Well okay then. So see, a fight is not the end, right?” She reached over the table and touched his arm. 

“Yeah. Thank you,” he breathed, and she swore she saw some of the weight that had been resting on his shoulders fly away. “I’m gonna apologize when I see them next.”

“Good,” she smiled. “And make sure it’s sincere. And make sure you follow through on the apology, alright? Prove that you know you were wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Make the relationship work, I mean. Put in the work, stay for the long term, and that will be the apology that they - and you - need.”

He rolled his eyes, but his smile grew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'd much appreciate any kudos or comments you care to leave!


	4. King Angus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m currently in bed sick and too lazy to get my laptop which is right next to me so here’s a chapter from my phone

King Angus wasn’t one to cry. He couldn’t think of the last time he had cried, if he thought about it. Not that he did think about it often; he didn’t need to. He knew it was the second day of December, almost exactly 18 years ago. Sean’s birthday. It was the first time that his wife had ever seen him cry, too. It was likely the first time in ten or fifteen years that another person had seen him cry. 

So no, King Angus wasn’t a crier. He had been raised to be stoic, because his father had reprimanded him more than once for crying as a child. He had raised Sean similarly. His mother protested, he remembered, because she had wanted the boy to be raised in a way that would let him show his emotions. But he wouldn’t stand for it. There were better ways to raise a child who would be a brave, strong, and just king. So he wouldn’t allow for tears in his castle, and Sean was good at obeying. 

-

Angus remembered a day, maybe when Sean was seven. He had fallen from his horse and torn his knee; Angus recalls thinking that he was lucky, a fall that bad could have been much worse. The two of them were out on a trail together, close to a patch of lava rocks that glowed in the sunset. Sean was only just starting to really learn the layout of the kingdom: how it sprawled and turned and became luminescent. And there he laid, on the ground, tears streaming down his face. 

“Get up,” Angus had barked. “You are fine.”

Sean looked up at him, his eyes frightened and huge, his skin leaking blood that matched the sky. 

“Come on, then,” Angus motioned with his hands for his son to speed up. “We will get it patched up when we get home. Until then, we have more land to cover.”

Sean obeyed, drying his tears quickly. The next day, Angus watched his studies in practicing fire magic, and watched as Sean produced flame for the first time. 

-

King Angus did his best not to cry. He really did. But as soon as he felt the tears stinging his eyes, he knew that it had to happen. So he turned around in his seat and watched Sean take a few steps towards three other boys - men, really: they were all kings now - at the end of a long aisle made out of chairs in a secluded area of woods in the Earth Kingdom. He watched as his son’s face lit up with pure joy, and then he glanced up to the front. The men waiting for him were looking at him like he crafted all the stars in the sky. And his face reflected their gaze, his blush like blown glass. And his wife reached over and squeezed his hand, and in her eyes he saw the same look Sean gave to his now-husbands. And a tear fell down his cheek, and he smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm trying to write as much as possible between now and my spring break, so hopefully that means this will be a week with a lot of updates!


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